


Four Bedroom House

by smallish



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Afterlife, Character Study, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Physical Abuse, Post-Series, jaylex but not really?, mentions of tim and jessica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-03-15 18:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3457952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallish/pseuds/smallish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We were all good people, once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for descriptions of non-gorey injuries, references to physical abuse, references to recreational drug use.
> 
> If I missed any warnings, in this chapter or a future one, never hesitate to tell me.

Breathing is like—knives. It’s too painful. Alex tries to hold his breath but the gasp for air that comes a moment later is even worse. He tries to scream but all he manages is a tiny whimper. There’s pressure against his chest and when he opens his eyes to see what it is all there is is dark.

It reminds him of movies where people are buried alive. They always have a lighter with them, don’t they? Alex fumbles but his hands move wrong, like they’re half asleep. 

The realization that he could die hits him, worn and familiar, and the faster gasps of breath hurt so hard that soon he doesn’t notice the pain at all. He flails up with his arms, determined to push at whatever’s on his chest, like the hero of the movie bursting through the grave dirt with one hand.

All at once it’s gone. Alex’s lungs fill with air, free of pain. Light stings his eyes and he covers them with his hands, plunging them back into temporary darkness. 

The air is too cold. Alex rolls to his side and wraps his arms around himself. He doesn’t need to look to know he’s in the woods. He can smell the dirt and leaves and feels pine needles and rocks dig into his skin.

He opens his eyes. It’s darker than he expected, somehow. The sun is shining, hidden away by the leaves of the tallest trees, but looking too deep into the woods makes his head hurt. It’s too dark. He can’t find anything in there.

Where the hell is he? There are some wooded areas near his home, but this doesn’t look right. He searches his pockets, hoping for a cell phone, but comes up empty. 

He’s supposed to be going over script revisions with Jay. He wants to switch some scenes around, alter a bit of dialogue. His head aches. Jay would get worried if he didn’t show, right? He’d call Brian or the cops and someone would find him. 

Alex slows his breathing. He can’t have been here long. He just needs to stay put. Wandering doesn’t help—he read somewhere that people just walk in circles if they don’t have landmarks. 

But it’s cold and Alex is nearly shaking from it. There has to be… _something_ he can use deeper in the forest. This place feels… warm. And right. His head throbs and his body feels heavy. He could sleep here. 

“Alex.”

The sudden voice makes him flinch and he finds his eyes have slid closed. He shakes his head and turns toward the direction of the voice. 

His vision is blurry, either from exhaustion or lack of proper eyewear, but after a moment he finds the source. Brian is slumped against a tree, his legs shaking. He’s breathing hard and before Alex can even take a step toward him, his knees give out and he hits the ground hard.

That makes Alex come running, kneeling down in front of Brian and trying to peer at his face. “Hey. Hey. Are you okay?”

Brian nods slowly and looks up. His face is lined with pain and there’s a dark bruise on one side, swelling an eye shut, but Alex feels some strange bit of reassurance, looking at him. He still has soft-looking hair and a kind mouth. He doesn’t know why he expected different. “It’s hard to walk. But I saw you and I had to…. I don’t think moving that much was a good idea.”

“We’ll rest a bit,” Alex offers distractedly. He doesn’t see any sign of injury on Brian, but he remembers the pain he felt as he woke up. Maybe this is like that: he just needs some time. 

But Brian’s breaths are shaky and his hands are trembling. Alex shifts closer, until they’re sitting side by side and Brian can put some weight on him.

“Do you know where we are?” he asks. Brian shakes his head. It’s odd to see him so exhausted; he’s the kind of guy who goes jogging in the morning and takes early classes and has actual _enthusiasm_ for them. Now he’s resting his head against Alex’s shoulder. 

“We need to find shelter,” Brian says after a while. He sits up properly, but Alex sees him wince. “And maybe start a fire. Figure the rest out from there.”

Alex nods slowly. Brian begins to stand and Alex slips his arm around him. Brian cries out in pain. Alex moves to release him, but Brian shakes his head and grasps his shoulder.

“We need to get you to a doctor,” Alex says. Brian doesn’t respond. 

They don’t get far. Brian tries to hide his pain and Alex keeps the pace to a shuffle, but he’s clearly hurting. It’s only a few minutes later that Alex stops, helping Brian to the ground. 

“I don’t think you should be moving,” Alex says. Brian is breathing heavily and sweat streaks his face. “Maybe I should look for shelter and come back for you.”

Brian shakes his head. “You won’t be able to find me again. We need to stay together.” He shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position. His shirt rides up a bit, exposing the curve of his hip and storm-purple discoloration. Alex grabs at his shirt and yanks it up. A dark bruise spreads over the entirety of his back and over his hips. There are gashes on his body, welts along his back.

“Oh shit,” Alex breathes, barely audible to even his own ears. Brian whimpers when he touches the bruise and Alex mumbles an apology. His heart is pounding. He knew Brian was hurt, but this looks bad. There could be spinal cord injuries, they could be making things worse by moving around. 

“Who the hell did this to you?” Alex releases Brian’s shirt. Brian shakes his head. 

“I can’t remember. The last thing I can think of is… going to that hospital with you. After that, it’s fuzzy.” He rubs his forehead, like he’s trying to shake away hazy afterimages.

“What hospital?”

Brian says something in reply—something about Tim—but there’s ringing in Alex’s ears and his head aches again. He claps his hands over his ears, but he can’t drown it out. Brian pulls at one of his arms.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can’t you hear that?” The ringing grows sharper at his words and he clutches his head again. Hands grab him—Brian’s, just trying to comfort him. Brian helps Tim through this sort of thing, doesn’t he?

The ringing stops. Alex’s forehead is pressed against Brian’s chest and Brian is rubbing circles into his back. Alex’s breathing evens and he rubs at his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Brian asks as Alex pulls away. Alex nods. The world seems too bright for a moment. He feels that pull inside him again. 

“There’s something out there,” Alex says. He gets to his feet, even as his knees wobble. 

“Maybe we should get out of here.” Brian struggles to stand. Alex reaches out to steady him, but Brian pushes his hand away. “I can—” He winces. “Okay, I can’t. Help.” Brian laughs, but it comes out hard and clipped. Alex lets Brian put an arm over his shoulder and he helps him stand, slowly.

“I want to know what that was,” Alex says once Brian finds his balance. He picks up a sturdy looking branch and offers it to Brian. “I want to at least see what that was.”

Brian shifts his weight onto the stick experimentally. “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he says, “but sure. We can look around. Not for long, though.” 

Brian follows as close behind as he can and even in his need to find what’s out there, Alex slows his pace so as not to lose him, pausing to clear things out of the Brian’s path or changing his route for easier terrain.

It only takes them a few minutes to find what they’re looking for, lying in the dirt and hat askew, struggling to wake up much as Alex had.

“Jay!” Alex sprints to him, shaking him gently. Brian draws closer, face pinched with worry.

“Is he hurt? Is he breathing?”

Alex looks him over, and nods shakily. “He’s okay, I think. Sort of pale and….”

Alex stares for a long moment. There’s something off about him. He looks older, somehow. A trick of the light. 

Jay’s eyelashes flutter, his fingers twitching against the dirt like he’s trying to find a grip. He comes to slowly, taking in his wooded surroundings first before looking up at Alex. 

He’s relaxed for a half second, then he’s pushing Alex away and scrambling back. He tries to get to his feet, but he collapses, coughing and griping his side.

“Jay?” Alex calls. The other man shoots him a glare but the venom vanishes a moment later.

“Brian?” He’s wide-eyed, like he’s never seen him before. Alex glances back at Brian, but he seems just as lost as he is. 

Brian takes it in stride, wiping the stunned expression from his face and replacing it with a gentle smile. He steps forward, still leaning heavily on his stick, and gestures for Alex to stay put. 

It takes a few hobbling steps, but Brian reaches Jay and sits down beside him, barely hiding a grimace. “You’re alive?” Jay chokes out. He looks like he’s seen the second coming of Christ, which is honestly ridiculous because handsome as Brian might be, he’s hardly _divine_. 

“A little banged up, but I think I’ll be okay.” Brian’s still got that soothing smile, sitting there like he’d do it all day if Jay needs him to.

Jay’s eyes dart between Brian and Alex, then he scans the ground, twisting this way and that to get a full view of his surroundings. “Where’s my camera?” When he gets no response, his frown deepens. “Where’s Tim?”

That gets a surprised look out of Brian and he shoots a glance at Alex. That was the wrong thing to do, apparently. Jay tenses all over again, grabbing Brian’s sleeve.

“Is he okay?” Then he’s on his feet, looking around. “Are we in Rosswood? Doesn’t look the same….” Then he’s looking at Alex again, but more intently this time, like he’s trying to puzzle something out.

“Look, I know you’re scared but we’ve got to work together. We need shelter before night comes, okay?” Brian is still sitting, but his eyes are moving like he’s looking for something.

Jay finally looks away from Alex. “Tim could be out here. We need to find him.”

Brian nods. “If he’s out here, you know I want to find him as much as you do, but we can’t go running around without a plan. We need to worry about staying warm and finding water. We can build a fire, maybe the smoke will draw him to us, right?”

Jay stares at Alex again. If he was looking for something, he must have found it because he finally nods. “Okay. Shelter first, then we find Tim.”

Brian stands, but too quickly. He stumbles and clutches at his walking stick with a whimper. Jay startles, then moves as if to help. Brian waves him off. “Sorry. I—I think I took a fall. Need to remember to take it slow.” He cracks a weak smile and Jay backs off. 

“Brian, how did you get here?” The smile fades and shakes his head.

Jay cautions a glance at Alex. He shrugs.

“Me neither,” Jay says.

They start walking after that. Brian stays between Jay and Alex, not that it’s needed given the wide berth they give each other. Alex doesn’t know how to take Jay’s sudden distrust. He’s always liked Jay. He’s a bit shy, maybe a bit weird, but he was a sweet guy—always tried to help out where he could. He always gave people the benefit of the doubt. He was good like that. 

What changed? Something was off with him in the way he stood and the way he talked. Not to mention how concerned he was about Tim. They weren’t exactly close, but Jay was acting like they were buddies or something. 

“Is that a house?” Brian gasps and through the foliage Alex can glimpse the paneling of a house, slate blue and too modern to be any random cabin in the middle of the woods. 

They clear the trees and there really is a small, two story house sitting there, looking like it tumbled out of suburbia and into a forest. It’s not right. Houses like that don’t just appear with no one around, no trail to it. 

It looks just like he remembers. Patches of paint on the porch are a slightly different color than the rest—an attempt to fix up peeling pain that didn’t quite hash out. There’s a wreath, crooked, on the door.

“Maybe someone is home and we can call for help.” Brian is already marching for the door, but Alex and Jay linger. They share a glance and whatever’s going on between them right now, they both know that something is wrong. 

They follow as Brian is knocking on the door, grumbling under his breath about stairs and his back. Alex fights the sudden urge to giggle. He’s been worrying about finding his childhood home sitting in the middle of a forest, and here Brian is, sounding like a grumpy old man. 

There is no answer. They wait several minutes, bang against the door loudly, and finally Alex just tries the doorknob. It is, of course, unlocked. They lived in a little rural town where everyone knew everyone else. They never locked the door.

He takes a step in and the nostalgia hits him hard. He hasn’t been here since… since the summer between freshman and sophomore year. Well, not here, but his parents’. They’re exactly the same, so much so that he finds himself staring at a little paperweight perched on the side table next to the door. It was made to look like a daffodil frozen in a crystal forever. He bought it for his mother’s birthday when he was still in high school. She had failed to cultivate a garden that spring and he had felt sentimental.

The thought of her makes his heart ache. He hasn’t seen her in…. No, it wasn’t that long ago, was it? He’s seen her since he moved out. On holidays, always hosted at some other relative’s house. Still, once he gets out of this forest, he’s going to call her. Maybe he’ll actually come home for a visit.

Even as he’s thinking of her, he glances up at the shelf on the opposite side of the threshold. They kept a family photo there, from when he was twelve and embarrassingly young-looking, but his mother loved it because they were all grinning and looking like a happy family. It was a camping trip or something. It’s not there anymore—a gap where it should be standing.

Brian pokes him in the back. “You wanna let us in?”

Alex hurries out of the way. Brian’s trying to hide it, but he can tell the pain is exhausting him. Alex shakes off the memories. There’s no bedroom on the first floor, but there is a couch that should be long enough for him. 

“C’mere,” he says and leads Brian to the living room, just one room over. “Take off your shirt and lie down.”

“Trying to seduce me again?” Brian unbuttons his shirt and tosses it at Alex. He winces. “Maybe I shouldn’t throw things for a while.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jay gasps from the threshold. “The hell happened to you?”

Brian shrugs, or tries to. “Fell down some stairs?” He pushes some toss pillows onto the ground and lies on the couch, stomach down.

Alex stares at the mass of bruises and welts on his back. He doesn’t know how to treat this. He’d always just cover up bruises or put an ice pack on anything that swelled up. This was too much, to say nothing of possible internal injuries.

“Jay, uh, there’s a first aid kit in the bathroom around that corner. Could you…?”

Jay nods, features twisted in confusion, and takes off. Alex leaves for the next room over, the kitchen, and grabs an icepack out of the freezer. He wraps it in a towel and returns to Brian just as Jay does. 

Brian snickers. “I think you’re going to need a bigger icepack.”

Alex rolls his eyes at him. “Jay, check for alcohol and bandages for, uh, the cuts and stuff. And anything else that might be useful.”

“Painkillers would be great,” Brian adds. “Especially if I can get a nice high off of them.”

Alex presses the icepack against Brian’s swollen eye gently. “Oh yeah, we’re in a creepy house in the middle of the woods with no idea how we got here. Let’s get stoned.”

Brian huffs, taking the icepack from Alex. “This is why everyone thinks you’re annoying, Kralie.”

“At least I’m not a conceited asshole, Thomas.”

“Your last name is Thomas? You have two first names?” Jay looks so utterly baffled that Alex starts laughing. 

“Yeah and you know what they say about people with two first names: they can’t be trusted.”

Jay shakes his head. “This is surreal,” he mutters. He’s sat on an armchair, back too straight, and he looks like a disapproving mother and Alex has to agree—this whole thing is entirely too surreal. He hopes this is all just a dream he can wake up from. 

Alex starts dabbing at the cuts on Brian’s back with an alcohol-soaked rag. Brian hisses, visibly fighting the urge to pull away. “The stoner has a point,” Alex says. “Can you check the medicine cabinet again? And there’s another bathroom upstairs, second door on the left. See if there’s anything we can use—there might be some Vicodin. This is going to hurt in the morning.”

“It hurts now,” Brian grumbles. “And you’re going to have to explain how you know your way around this place, Nurse Kralie.” Jay spares Alex another curious glance before scurrying off. 

He comes back not long later with some ibuprofen and prescription Vicodin, which Brian happily swallows dry.

Their attempts at medical care are feeble. Jay raids the freezer for anything else that can be used as an ice pack: peas, ice in a Ziplock, even a pint of ice cream, though Brian says they should save it for later. 

Once Alex declares that “uh, I think that’s all we can do right now,” he throws a light blanket over Brian and sits on the floor next to him. Jay takes a cautious seat a few paces away from him.

“So how do you know this place?” Jay asks. He’s looking right at the Vicodin bottle, though—of course he is. He had to have read the label when he was going through the medicine cabinet.

Alex grabs the bottle from him, displaying the label: _Kralie, Sean_ for his friends to see. “This is my parents’ house. I mean, it’s not, but it’s the same. I don’t know.”

Brian makes a thoughtful sound. “I’m not sober enough for this,” he decides, and closes his eyes for sleep. Alex glances at Jay. 

“You don’t look as surprised as I expected.”

“Hm? Oh!” Jay tries to arrange his features into a look of shock, but the effect is mostly comical. “No, it’s really strange!” Alex sighs. Jay’s exaggerated expression falls back to contemplation. “Something weird is happening.”

“You don’t say,” Alex scoffs. 

“No, you don’t get it, I mean… there are no animals around. No birds or even any deer.”

Alex opens his mouth to say Jay is just being dramatic, but then he realizes: the forest is dead silent. He hasn’t heard a single bird. Even as the sun goes down, there are no crickets chirping. The only living things they’ve seen are each other.

Jay picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “I wish I had my camera. At least then I’d know what’s going on.”

Alex shakes his head at that. He has no idea what Jay is talking about anymore—it’s like talking to a different person. 

“I’m starving,” he says as he stands. Jay scoots back a bit. “I’m going to raid the fridge. Want anything?”

Jay doesn’t answer, but he does follow Alex into the kitchen. 

“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to eat food from a weird house in a weirder forest, but nothing ventured nothing gained.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jay mumbles.

Alex pulls out a carton of Chinese leftovers (that raised even more questions that he didn’t want to think about) and a couple of sodas. 

“You okay, Jay? I know this is weird, but don’t give up. We’ll get out of this.” He holds out a soda. 

Jay stares at the drink for a long moment, like he expects it to bite him. The fridge door is still open, and Alex shivers at the cold. Jay takes it. He holds it like it’s an ancient relic, containing all the mysteries of the world. Alex thinks he needs to get out more often.

“Alex, how old are you?”

Alex tilts his head and smiles, bemused. He kicks the fridge door shut. “Um, twenty-one? You were at the party, man.”

Jay nods slowly. He cracks the can open and takes a cautious sip. “Yeah, I know, I just… couldn’t remember if your birthday had passed again.”

Alex raises a brow. His birthday wasn’t that long ago. Maybe Jay took some Vicodin when Alex wasn’t looking. Jay pretends not to notice his stare, but his cheeks have turned red in the dim light. He’s a weird kid, but he’s sort of cute when he gets flustered. 

They don’t talk much after that. They heat up some lo mein and listen to Brian snore. They fall asleep in the living room, an unspoken agreement that there was safety in numbers.

* * *

“Alex!” Jay pokes him in the shoulder. 

Alex responds by grumbling and rolling over. He gets another hard poke. 

“Alex!”

“What?” he snaps as he rolls to face Jay again. 

“There’s something scratching on the windows.”

Alex listens. There’s the hum of the fridge, the rasp of the heater, but whatever Jay’s hearing, Alex doesn’t—no, there it is, a faint scratching, persistent enough that it’ll probably keep him from falling asleep now that he’s noticed it. 

Alex rolls his eyes. “It’s just the trees.” He sighs and pulls his blanket back up. 

“Alex, the house is in a clearing.”

That makes him stop. At the same time, the scratching gets louder, longer against the window. Alex twists and shakes Brian by the shoulder. He grunts softly and keeps sleeping. 

“I tried to wake him,” Jay says, “but I think the drugs have completely knocked him out.”

Alex hisses in annoyance. “This is how people die in horror movies.” He gets on his feet and goes into the kitchen, yanking open a drawer and drawing out a pair of flashlights. He hands one to Jay. “I guess this is the part where we split up?” He’s grinning too wide. His hands are shaking again.

Jay rolls his eyes. Then there’s another scratch and they flinch together. 

Alex crosses the threshold and opens the front door, shining his light out. The darkness swallows up the beam. The night air is bitterly cold.

The scratching stops. Alex feels that pull again, that longing for the forest. He sets his jaw and slams the door closed. He and Jay share a long look. The feeling fades. Warmth returns to his fingers.

They walk in silence back to the living room. Brian is still sleeping soundly. Alex and Jay reclaim their spots on the floor, but neither speak. They spend the rest of the night in silence, wide awake. 

Brian, however, is well rested and wakes beaming. “Any chance of waffles?” His grin fades when he sees the two sets of bloodshot eyes staring back at him. Once they fill him in, he looks concerned. “So… no waffles. I’m _joking_ ,” he says when Alex shoots him a glare. “Look, if something is out there, we need to look for Tim.”

He starts to sit up, but Alex pushes him back down—Brian hisses in pain at the pressure. “You need to rest. We’ll do the searching.” Alex forces a breath into his lungs and tries to smile. “After waffles.” Brian raises a brow. “I saw some in the freezer.”

After breakfast, Jay takes to doing the dishes while Alex checks Brian’s back. 

The bruises have faded, still visible and deep, but not as dark as before. The welts have all but disappeared and the cuts are scarred over. 

“I told you I was feeling better,” Brian says smugly. “I can help look today.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Given that I’m apparently great at this medical shit, you’re going to listen to me and stay here and rest.” He sits on the coffee table and starts packing away the medical supplies.

“Hey, Alex?” Brian’s tone is quiet now and that makes Alex go tense. He’s been expecting this. “Look, I know that this isn’t really your house, but are you okay being here?”

Dishes clack in the kitchen. Alex hates that he trusted Brian those months ago, that he told him what happened, because this is not a conversation he wants to have. He doesn’t tell Brian that he had to fight not to flinch while they were making breakfast, when Jay moved out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t tell Brian that the coffee table he’s sitting on is the same one that he fell against when his father shoved him for mouthing off. He doesn’t tell Brian that he had to change for P.E. in a bathroom stall for a month to hide the bruise. 

“It’s not a big deal. Like you said, it’s not even the same place.”

Brian nods slowly. “Okay. Good. We’re going to get out of this, okay?”

There’s a break in his voice. It doesn’t show on his face, but Alex thinks he might be afraid.

“Ready to go?”

Jay’s standing in the doorway and Alex has never been happier to see him.

“We’ll be back before nightfall.” Alex promises. He goes into the kitchen and pulls out a small knife his father used to a variety of small tasks. “I’m going to mark the trees so we can find our way back. Even if we don’t find Tim, he might see the marks and follow them.”

Brian raises a brow. He looks like he wants to say something, but instead he just nods.

“Get some rest,” Alex says, and he and Jay are out the door. 

Jay walks closer to him than before. Whatever had him on edge before is gone now, and he’s back to his old self. Almost, anyway. There’s something sharper about Jay than there was before. It doesn’t bother Alex, exactly, but it does make him wonder.

Jay’s choosing their path, straight west. Once the sun is over them, they’ll head back. They packed little sandwiches for lunch. It feels like they’re just going out hiking for the day, not looking for a friend in the middle of an unknown forest. 

“This is sort of pointless, isn’t it?” Jay says after a while. “He could be anywhere. He could be dead.”

“He might not even be here,” Alex says. “I mean, what makes you think that he is?”

Jay frowns. His eyes are distant, like he’s trying to remember something. “We were headed somewhere together. I just… I can’t remember what happened next. But he has to be here somewhere. Really wish I had my camera right now.”

Alex watches Jay from the corner of his eye. He can’t help but feel like they’re having two different conversations, like Jay’s just dancing around what he really wants to say.

“Look, we’ll get out of here. If we don’t find Tim by then, we tell the police and they’ll find him.”

Jay shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. He trudges forward, eyes down. Alex searches for something to say.

“I hope we get out of here soon. Amy’s probably worried.” Jay slows. “I mean, Fridays are the only days that we specifically set aside for talking, but we text each other and stuff all week. She probably thinks I’m dead in a ditch or something.” Alex turns to give Jay a grin, but there’s something wrong with the look Jay has on his face. Alex feels sick. “What is it?”

Jay shakes his head, tries to mumble something about how, no, it’s nothing, but Alex grabs him by the arm. “Tell me. What is it? Did… did something happen to Amy?”

Jay stares for a long moment. Alex can almost see him making a decision. “I don’t know. I really don’t. All I know is… something _happened_ to you. I tried to find you and then Amy was gone too.”

Blood rushes in Alex’s ears. “What do you mean, gone? Is she dead?”

This time Jay is silent for too long. “I don’t know,” he says again.

Alex lets him go. He paces, rubs at his neck. Jay watches him.

Alex turns to him again. “Well, you found me, right? I mean, I’m here, right? She could be here, too. Maybe she and Tim are together, maybe they’re fine.”

Jay nods slowly. Alex’s throat tightens. He pushes back a sob. His hands are shaking. He sits against a tree and tries to remember how to breathe.

“How long ago?”

“…I’m not sure.”

For the first time, Alex thinks he’s really telling the truth.

He presses his forehead against his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for Alex’s father’s name and the idea for their relationship dynamic goes to jaythewriter. Thanks for all the sadness!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and/or comments. They brightened my day.
> 
> Warnings for descriptions of physical abuse and implied emotional abuse, blood, traumatic flashbacks, (imagined?) body horror, descriptions of illness (no vomitting).

They return to the house before sunset. Jay said Alex could go back earlier if he wanted, but Alex refused. He’d just torture himself, thinking of all the things that could have happened to Amy. Aimless wandering made him feel like he was at least trying to help her. He feels exhausted when he crosses the threshold of the house. The floorboards creak as he crosses, something he forgot they would do. The whole place feels like he’s unearthing a long-forgotten memory. There’s dust where his mother would never allow it. It’s like no one has been here since he moved out. But this isn’t that home.

Alex sighs and grinds the heel of his hand into his eye. He just wants to lie down for a bit, try to clear his head, come up with a plan.

The couch is empty and Alex’s first thought is, _Not him too._

Then there’s a shout: “You guys need to come up here!”

Alex rushes for the stairs, Jay just behind him. Brian is at the landing, leaning against the wall for support, eyes wide.

“What is it?” Alex gasps. Jay nearly crashes into him. 

Brian works his jaw, like he’s trying to find words. He gestures for them to follow. He shuffles forward and opens the first door on the right. Alex peers in. He frowns at Brian. 

“It’s my room, so what?” He takes a few steps in. It looks like he never left. Drawers with clothes half spilling out. A band poster over his bed looking about ready to fall off the wall—he doesn’t even listen to them anymore. There are some notebooks on the floor, ticket stubs for concerts and indie movies. His bed is rumpled, but the comforter looks warm as ever. His window overlooks the forest, though in his real home it gave him a view of the garden.

Alex plucks up his glasses from the nightstand and looks at Brian expectantly. He’s shaking his head. “Look at the other rooms.”

Alex makes an annoyed sound. “The only other rooms up here are my parents’ and the bathroom—”

The hall is longer than it should be. More doors than there should be. There’s his room. There’s the bathroom, its door ajar from Jay’s search the night before. After that there should be the door to his parent’s room and then an alcove that served as his father’s study. But there are two extra doors. Alex stares. Jay pushes open the nearest door.

It looks like a dorm room. Brian’s dorm room, from their first year in college. He was always a bit more organized than Alex, but there’s still a pile of dirty laundry in the corner. His bed is lofted, a small couch under it. On his desk is a laptop with an open notebook next to it. He can almost remember helping Brian go over chemistry notes.

Jay stares for a moment, then hurries to the next room. It’s a hotel room, bed pristinely made, colorful wallpaper trying to mimic a homey atmosphere. There’s a little safe next to the bed and a duffel bag lying next to the dresser.

Wordlessly, Alex approaches the last one, just past his room, and pushes the door open. The interior is cool plaster, no decorations to brighten the walls aside from a single, small window. There’s a small desk in one corner, a wardrobe in the other, and a bed in the center, made with military precision. It looks innocent enough, but there’s something about it that makes Alex uncomfortable. It has a clinical feeling to it. Jay is at his shoulder, his face dark. Brian is watching them from down the hall, still near Alex’s room. 

“So what the hell is this?” Alex asks. There’s a crack in his voice and he feels a surge of anger at that. He’s fine. He’ll keep it together because they have to find Amy and Tim. “What does this mean?”

Brian’s expression is distant. “It means we were expected.”

_It means we aren’t leaving._

Alex slumps against the doorway. He looks at the tiny, barren room. Then he looks back to the hallway, with the familiar, warm wallpaper and heavy wooden desk his father was so proud of. It feels like looking into two different worlds. 

It’s Jay’s footsteps that draw Alex from his reverie. He’s going back to the hotel-style room, but not inside it. “I guess this one’s mine.”

Alex taps a knuckle against the doorframe he’s still standing at. “So who’s this one belong to?”

Jay and Brian share a glance. Jay looks back to his own room, chewing his lip. “It’s Tim’s.”

Alex frowns at the room before heading back downstairs. He can’t stand looking at those rooms anymore. They felt more like prison cells than anything. No amount of band posters and dirty laundry could change that. 

Alex takes a seat at the kitchen table, the same one he would always sit at during family meals. It’s habit; he doesn’t even realize he’s done it until he’s resting his forehead against the cool wood and hears footsteps coming down the stairs. He flinches—it must be his father and he’s starts going through his day, trying to remember if there were any chores he forgot to do, anything he might have left out that he shouldn’t have, anything that….

It’s Brian. It’s Brian who’s slowly shuffling his way down the steps, and his father isn’t here. His heart is still racing, but he’s breathing slower. He goes to the stairs. 

“Need help?” he offers. Brian doesn’t even look up, so focused on supporting himself with the railing and placing his feet right. 

“I’m good. Can you grab that stick for me, though?”

The branch that Brian used as a cane yesterday is propped against the wall. Alex holds it out to him. 

“I was thinking of putting a crystal at the top,” Brian says with a grin. “Become a modern day Gandalf.”

“Gandalf was cool,” Alex counters. Brian nudges him playfully and continues into the kitchen. Alex pulls out a chair for him. Brian pretends to fan himself. 

“Well, aren’t you just the picture of a southern gentleman?” Brian’s grin fades as Alex sits down next to him. “Jay told me about Amy. If she’s out there, we’ll find her.”

Alex nods, but the words grate on him. All these reassurances but no way of guaranteeing their truth. He rubs his face. “This whole thing makes me want to scream. None of this makes sense. Why the hell is this happening to us?”

There’s no response. Alex looks up. Brian’s face is downturned and dark. He doesn’t look like the Brian he knows, who is all toothy grins and optimism whether you want to hear it or not. This Brian has a mouth that is a hard line and hands that are too still.

Then Brian looks up and offers a small smile. “Maybe we’re caught in a loop of unhappiness.”

Alex stares, open-mouthed, before bursting into laughter. Gut-aching, can’t breathe laughter. “Shut up, you prick,” he manages between ragged gasps. 

“I told you it sounds silly when you say it seriously.” Brian is the picture of smugness. Alex wipes tears from his eyes. 

“Yeah, well I don’t hear any better suggestions.”

They’re all grins again. Then Jay’s at the door. 

“Is everything okay?”

“Alex is just starting to accept that he might not be the next Steven Spielberg.”

Jay scrunches his nose in confusion. “I’m going to get something to eat.”

He opens the fridge and makes a small noise. He’s absolutely still for a moment. Then he reaches in and pulls out a white carton and holds it up. It has a red Chinese character emblazoned on it. 

Alex stands. “This can’t be right.” He grabs the carton from Jay and opens it. Beef lo mein.

Brian clears his throat. “Why are we alarmed by Chinese food?”

“We ate this yesterday. All of it,” Jay says. Alex puts the carton on the counter and opens the trash can. It’s empty. 

“I’m going to skip dinner,” he decides, and goes up to his room. 

He doesn’t get any sleep except a few fitful hours. His dreams are murky and faint when he wakes. He thinks they’re of Amy.

The room is too full of memories. He’s had the same bed since high school. He would sneak girls up here sometimes, or, more rarely, a boy. He only did that when he was sure his father would be working late. He’s still not sure why he took the chance. Even lesser offenses got harsh punishments. He still remembers the slap from that summer after his first year of college.

When he had come home, his father had hugged him, asked him all sorts of questions. Practically beamed at him. Alex had wondered if the bad memories were just in his head, just exaggerated by his penchant for drama. _Always coming up with weird ideas,_ his father used to say. _Going to get you in trouble._

He’d been reading in his room. He had heard his father coming up the stairs and he had flinched and told himself, _Stop overreacting._

His father had come through the open door and hit him. Split his lip and bloodied his nose. It was over dishes. Sunday was his day to do them. Everyone had particular chores on particular days and they were expected to do them. It’s called discipline. Forgetting isn’t an excuse. Got blood on his sheets and dripped all the way to the bathroom. 

It was seeing his bloody face in the mirror for the first time in almost a year that made him decide. He couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t just let it happen every time he was home. Loop of unhappiness. He wasn’t making it up. He took a picture with his phone so he wouldn’t forget. It’s still buried in there somewhere, wherever his phone is now. 

He got through that summer. Worked two jobs. Got every penny out of it that he could. Found a tiny little house to share with two other men in his college town. Brian helped him get furniture. Never went home again. 

There’s a tiny bloodstain on his pillowcase. It’s that little detail that gets him. After he had cleaned himself up, he had mopped up his blood on the floors and washed his sheets, but not the pillowcase. Hadn’t notice the pin drop dot of blood until it had stained. He has to be going nuts. There’s no way all these little details could be replicated without actually being his house. It has to be it, but it’s not possible. Houses don’t just move. Not to forests with ice-cold darkness and a pull at him that makes his entire body ache.

He shivers under his blankets all night. 

Come morning, he’s trying to make coffee with clumsy hands. He has to keep searching today. Make sure Amy is safe. Get the hell out. Pretend this never happened. 

“You look horrible,” Jay says. Alex heard him come down the stairs. He looks comparatively well-rested, the shadows under his eyes no deeper than the day before, his hair sticking up in puffs. It’s sort of endearing. 

Alex responds by drinking the coffee with a grimace and gesturing at the pot questioningly. Jay shakes his head. He pours himself orange juice instead and joins Alex at the table. 

“How can you sleep when this is happening?”

Jay half shrugs. “Doing this longer, I guess.”

“Looking for me and Amy?”

Jay nods slowly. 

Alex swirls his coffee. “Why did you look for me?”

Jay’s quiet again. The silence goes on for so long that Alex almost wonders if he heard him at all. “I just wanted to help. But I think I just screwed everything up more.”

“This is a glum topic to start the day on,” Brian says as he walks in. Walks. Not slowly shuffles, but actually walks. He still leans on his makeshift cane, but he’s a far cry from the state he was in two days ago, or even the day before. The bruises on his face have entirely vanished.

“Christ on a cracker,” Alex observes. “Are you sure you’re not superhuman?” He stands up and pokes Brian’s bicep. Brian swats at him with his free hand.

“I’ve always been more than you thought I was, Kralie.” He takes a seat and sighs. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever heal, but it’s something. Also, I’d like to file a complaint with your parents. Their stairs are way too steep.”

“I’ll pass it on,” Alex grumbles.

“So, since I’m doing better—”

“No,” Alex says. Brian makes an exaggerated face. 

A breakfast consisting of cereal and granola bars is devoured by the three of them before Alex and Jay leave again.

They go in the opposite direction this time, and Alex uses the knife to carve messages into trees: 

AMY  
TIM  
GO WEST  
WE’RE  
IN THE  
HOUSE

He doesn’t know why he bothers. No one is going to see them. They’re alone out here. 

By noon, Alex’s hands are clumsy. He has to shake his head at random intervals to keep focus. Jay doesn’t say anything, but he keeps tossing concerned glances at him, looking like he wants to say something, but always choosing not to. 

It’s probably three hours into their useless hike when Jay finally speaks. 

“So, why your house?”

Alex thinks about cracking a joke, but he’s too exhausted. He just shrugs. 

“I don’t know.”

Jay sighs. “This would be so much easier if I had my camera. Then we’d at least have some sort of starting point or have some idea what happened.”

“You keep talking about that. Do you really film everything?”

Jay stutters. “Not—not _everything_. Just, you know, important things. In case I forget. Like I have right now.” He sighs. “Like both of us have.” He fidgets, like he’s expecting Alex to interrogate him further. “It just makes me, I don’t know, feel better. Easier to make sense of everything.”

If he doesn’t say something, Jay is just going to get more anxious and defensive and probably end up telling Alex his entire life story, so he just nods and says, “Makes sense. I know I wish this all made more sense.”

Jay sighs and falls blessedly silent. He gives Alex the tiniest smile.

They’re halfway back to the house when Alex’s eyes slide closed and he trips over his own feet. The impact against the ground wakes him more surely than any cup of coffee could and he struggles to fill his lungs with air. 

Leaves fly into the air as Jay’s sneakers approach. His hands are on Alex then: his back, his shoulders, his arms. Helping him up. They’ve never touched before, have they? He’s warm. 

“Shit,” Alex declares as he sits up. He plucks leaves out of his hair. He glimpses Jay’s face the moment it changes from concern to amusement. It makes him smile, too. 

Jay helps him stand, though he doesn’t need it. His hands linger a second too long.

They laugh about the stupid fall on the way back and Alex doesn’t know if he _should_ laugh with Amy still out there but the lack of sleep makes him feel giddy.

Dinner is a quiet affair. Brian made spaghetti, which he boasts as one of his few culinary masterworks, along with grilled cheese and scrambled eggs.

Alex does dishes tonight. They’ve all come to an unspoken agreement to split up the chores. Jay’s shuffling around upstairs and Alex is trying to plan their next move—some other way to comb through the forest, to find their people. 

“I had a thought about the forest.” Brian grabs a dish towel and starts drying glasses. “It changes at night. If someone was caught out there at night, maybe that’s the only time you can find them.”

Alex looks out the little window over the sink. The sky is darkening and he can already feel the chill. “Maybe you’re right. It might be the only way to know for sure, but….”

“We can’t do it without a plan,” Brian says quickly. “Forget I said anything.” He reaches for the cabinet above Alex’s head, but all Alex sees is a long arm reaching for him. He flinches so hard that he drops a plate into the sink. 

Brian pulls his arm back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have moved so suddenly.” He touches Alex’s elbow and Alex remembers to breathe.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s not…. I didn’t think it was him anyway.”

Brian frowns. “Then who did you think it was?”

A form created only by the negative space around it. Hissing promises that end in blood. Alex clears his throat. “I’m not sure.”

He picks up the plate again, not even chipped. He wonders if they would come back if they were broken, like the food, or if they’re gone forever. How many things here are like that? Maybe that was why Brian got better so fast. Maybe they’d just get better if they died.

Alex shakes his head and dries off the plate. He wishes Brian goodnight and promises Jay he’ll get decent sleep.

He doesn’t. His head pounds and his body aches. The forest pulls at him, twists at his bones until he’s sure they’ll break. He kicks off the blankets; even in the frozen night air they’re too warm. He feels sick, like poison was in the air he breathed. The scratching against the window feels like knives in his skull. He wants to call out, but the words catch in his throat. He’s trapped in his little prison cell until dawn comes. It leaves him shivering.

He goes downstairs on shaky legs, breaths coming too hard. He can’t balance right.

He’s leaning against a wall, trying to catch his breath, and he doesn’t even remember stopping. Brian is at his side. Asking questions, trying to put his hand against Alex’s forehead. He leans away from the touch and tries to focus on what Brian’s saying. 

“When was the last time you slept?”

Alex shakes his head. It’s a stupid fucking question. “How can you sleep in this goddamn house?” His voice is raspy. He tries to swallow, but his mouth is dry. 

“You have a fever,” Brian says. He’s already leading Alex to the couch, hand clasped around his arm. Alex lets out a dry laugh because Brian is using Alex to steady himself without his cane. If he pulled away, Brian would stumble and Alex could run. He doesn’t know why he thinks that. He follows Brian obediently.

“I can’t stay,” Alex says. “I have to look for Amy. She’s….”

“She’s going to need you healthy when we find her,” Brian says. Behind him, Jay is watching at the kitchen door.

“Let me go with you,” Alex tries. “I….” A fit of coughing hits him, deep and thick. Brian rubs his back. 

“You should stay here,” Jay says. There’s a tremble in his voice. “You need to get some rest.”

“I _can’t_ rest,” Alex rasps. 

“You can’t walk either,” Brian says. “So you’ve got no choice.”

The next few minutes pass in a blur. Brian makes him take Tylenol and pulls the same light blanket over him that Alex gave him their first night here. He’s like a doting mother. 

His mother. He hopes she’s safe. 

Jay touches his shoulder before he leaves. He’s hesitant, but gentle. Alex breaks into another coughing fit. By the time he’s recovered, Jay is gone. 

Brian hovers near him all day, checking his temperature. Alex fades in and out, never sleeping but sometimes lost to a tangle of thoughts with no coherence. 

Once, he becomes aware Brian is watching him. His face is blank and there’s something unkind in his expression, so out of place that Alex almost wonders if it’s really Brian at all.

Then he makes eye contact with Alex and the gentleness reappears and he coaxes Alex into eating a few bites of soup. 

When Jay comes back, Alex doesn’t even have the energy to open his eyes. They must think he’s finally found sleep. He and Brian talk in low voices in the kitchen, but he can make out the words. 

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? There are only four rooms. Me, you, Alex, and Tim. There’s none for Amy. She’s not here.”

The voices are like buzzing in his head. He wants to speak, but he can’t remember how to move his tongue. If Amy’s not here, then where is she? She’s out there. She’s out there, and she’ll be here and safe with them. Because if she’s not here…. If she’s not here, then….

“It might be best if we don’t tell Alex for now.”

Alex wants to sob. He’s an empty husk. 

Night comes. The scratching against the window is different this time. It’s not a cruel taunt. It never was. It’s a lullaby, gentle and sweet, and it sings Alex to sleep. He dreams that Amy is holding him, humming the melody and stroking his hair. He can’t see her face. 

In the morning, his fever is gone. He showers and changes into clean clothes. He feels lighter. It’s easier to breathe. 

Brian insists on taking his temperature and grudgingly accepts that Alex is “probably not going to die in, like, the next five minutes.”

Jay is in the kitchen, cutting slices of homemade bread that Alex’s father used to make. 

“What are you doing?” Alex’s voice is still scratchy, but Jay smiles at him. It’s a happy, relieved one and it makes Alex smile back.

“I was going to try to make French toast. There’s strawberries in the fridge and I found a recipe in one of your mom’s cookbooks.”

“I haven’t had French toast since I was a kid,” Alex says. He stands next to Jay, admiring his handiwork. “By the way, you’re supposed to cut bread with a, you know, bread knife. This is a paring knife.”

“Shut up,” Jay says, but he’s grinning and there’s red on his cheeks and Alex hadn’t realized just how close they were standing until now.

Maybe he hadn’t thought about it much before, but Jay’s eyes are a clear blue and he has dimples when he smiles. Jay shifts under the scrutiny and his gaze drops from Alex’s eyes to his lips. 

Alex lifts his chin and leans down for a soft, experimental kiss. He’s pulling back to judge Jay’s reaction, but fingers wind into his hair and they’re kissing again, harder this time.

It’s not at all like kissing Amy, but that’s what he wants, needs. Jay’s lips are chapped and his hands are calloused. Alex runs a hand up Jay’s back, feeling the edges of his spine, the outline of his binder. 

It’s not like kissing Amy. Not until Jay rests a hand against his neck, just like she used to and—he remembers her voice, the way she slipped out of his grasp and let out a low, sobbing moan. She was bleeding all over and there was no way she’d—

His hands had been covered thick with her blood. He’d smeared it on his face, wiping away away the tears, hands shaking so hard he dropped the knife. 

There’s blood on his hands now. There’s a little whimper from Jay and Alex stumbles back. The paring knife. He doesn’t remember picking it up. 

There’s a shout and Brian is twisting Alex’s wrist making him drop the knife and he shoves Alex back. He hits the counter hard and falls to the floor. 

“I… I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t me.”

Brian isn’t paying attention. He has one hand pressed against Jay’s side, the other arm wrapped around his waist. Brian is talking to Jay in a low voice, guiding him away. 

“I swear, it wasn’t me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dating tip: don’t kiss the guy who murdered you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for suicide ideation, self-hatred, bereavement, internalized victim blaming, traumatic flashbacks, descriptions of emotional and physical abuse, blood. Seriously, this chapter is a bit intense so please be good to yourselves.

The knife is still on the floor, dripping with red. Alex can hear Jay and Brian in the bathroom down the hall. They didn’t even shut the door and lock it. How stupid are they? He could still be dangerous. 

Alex reaches for the knife. It feels lighter than he thinks it should. His hand trembles around it. He draws his knees to his chest, holding the knife close. 

He’s too dangerous to be around them. He could snap at any time, that much is clear. He should just….

Alex bangs his head against the cabinets. Stupid. There was no way he could bleed out before they got to him. They’d be good Samaritans and stop the bleeding. Even if they didn’t, there was no guarantee it would even work, not with the way they healed in this place. 

He hurt Jay. He just picked up the knife and stabbed him. Who did something like that?

“Alex. Give me the knife.”

Alex stops trembling at the sound of Brian’s voice. He didn’t even know he had started. He didn’t even know Brian had come back. 

“Afraid I’ll attack again?” There’s a bitter clip to his voice, but he’s afraid of what he’ll do, too. He grips the knife tight. 

“We’re more afraid of what you’ll do to yourself.”

Alex laughs. He just tried to fucking kill Jay. The blood isn’t even dried. And they’re worrying about him?

“Alex.”

He drops the knife into the floor. He doesn’t look up at Brian. There’s a scrape as Brian takes it and Alex shudders. Brian is quiet, so quiet that Alex wonders if he just imagined him.

“I’m going to find any other knives and lock them up, okay?” Brian’s voice is sudden and too loud.

Alex nods. He’s shaking again. Brian sits down next to him. “Jay’s okay. He’s a little weak but the cut’s already closing. It wasn’t that deep.” Alex stays silent. “This isn’t your fault.”

Brian is warm next to him. Even with the way he is now, body broken, Alex still thinks of him as strong. 

“Do you know what I promised myself when I started dating Amy?” Alex asks. He tilts his head to see Brian’s face, but his vision is blurry. His glasses are on the floor somewhere, but it’s not just that. Alex blinks, hard. Brian waits for him to continue. “I told myself if I ever thought about laying hands on her or if I raised my voice to her, even once, I’d leave. I didn’t want to be like my father.” Alex takes a deep breath. His head hurts. “I think I killed Amy.”

“It wasn’t you, Alex.” The tone of Brian’s voice ticks up at the end, like he’s asking a question.

“No, it was. I remember parts of it. The… the rationalization. That I had to. I murdered her.”

Brian reaches out, like he wants to touch Alex’s hair or clasp his shoulder. Alex shrinks away. He uncurls, sits up straighter. 

“I was thinking just now. About this house. It’s my house. My parents’, I mean. It’s a punishment. This place is hell, and it’s trying to break me, throwing all these old memories at me. You know why it’s me, and not you or Jay?” Brian shakes his head. “Because I’m the weakest. It’ll be easy to break me and then I’ll go after you and Jay.”

Something darkens in Brian’s face. “We will never be free.”

Alex presses his forehead into Brian’s shoulder. A stolen, guilty moment of comfort. Brian puts an arm around his shoulders. 

“Let’s get you upstairs,” he says. “Then I’ll check on Jay.”

“No,” Alex says. “Lock me in the basement.” He pulls back and looks Brian in the eye. “Please. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Brian studies him for a long moment. He nods. “Okay. But just until I have the knives put away and I know Jay’s fine.”

Alex nods; he can convince Brian to keep him down there later.

The basement is small, just a square cement room with some old furniture and crates of magazines. There’s his grandmother’s couch that his father always said he would reupholster and never did. There’s a box of old McDonald’s toys that his mother always saved. None of this stuff belongs here.

Brian checks under the couch and its cushions for anything sharp and scans the area for anything else. He pockets a couple of loose nails. “I won’t leave you here long,” he promises before he goes back upstairs. The lock clicks loudly. Alex sits on the couch. 

He’s been locked down here before, but only once. He’d been drinking with his father, watching some football game that Alex hadn’t cared about. He’d been so eager to spend time with his father, to sit down and do something that normal families did. He could pretend not to be some weird artsy kid for a little while, to like things that his father expected him to like. Then his father gave him a beer. Alex had only ever managed to sneak a few here and there, and he’d been eager to accept each time his father offered him one. Before long, everything was pleasantly fuzzy and his father cheered too loudly at each touchdown.

Alex doesn’t remember what he did to anger his father. Maybe he stumbled over some furniture and broke something. Maybe he swore a little too much. His father had slapped him and told him to fuckin’ mind himself and Alex had slapped him right back. 

He got a punch to the face for that and then his father grabbed him by the back of the neck and dragged him to the basement. Alex still remembers the splinters that dug into his hands. The railing was old and Alex had been afraid of falling as he was nearly shoved down the stairs. He spent the night shivering down there until morning came and his mother learned what happened. 

He’d been hungover and bruised. His mother called him into school sick and tucked him into bed. They didn’t talk about what happened. It had never exactly been routine, but it wasn’t new either. This was just something that happened sometimes. His mother had fought back tears that day and alex hadn’t tried to comfort her. It wasn’t the first time Christina threatened her husband with divorce and it wasn’t the last. 

There was always a reason. For his mother, it was her fault for making him so frustrated and he couldn’t help but lose his temper with their son. She could try to divorce him, but did she really think the court would let her take Alex? It was just manipulation. Alex knows that, and he thinks his mother did too. But his father also used to say that he was just trying to teach Alex some goddamn discipline. That if he didn’t, Alex would end up some sort of criminal. Even through the mind games, he was right after all. Maybe if Alex had actually learned something from those bruises, Amy would still be alive. 

Others, too. He can’t remember their faces, but—

This basement is too much like the others. There’s a blond kid, scrawny, trying to hide his shaking hands. Bloodstains on the floor, caught on tape. A woman gasping as she tries to claw his face. 

Alex moans, buries his face in his hands and digs nails into his scalp, like he might be able to tear out the memories. He’s killed people. Not just Amy. The why is on the tip of his tongue but he can’t—

What’s he going to do, if they get out? Turn himself in? It’s the right thing to do, but he sees his mother’s face, knowing that she once tried to protect her murderous son from her husband and he can’t stop a sob. He can’t do that to her. 

He can’t let what he did go unpunished, either. He should have found a way to sneak a knife in here. Brian would be busy for a while. He used to have a knife in his room, didn’t he? Maybe it’s still there. He shouldn’t have suggested the basement. 

Alex stands and begins searching the room with new determination. There has to be something Brian missed. A bit of scrap metal hiding under a crate, broken glass, an old razor blade, _something_.

The basement is too cold. It takes too long for Alex to realize it and by the time he does, he’s on the floor coughing. Blood dots his fingers and all he can think is _again, again, again_. 

Hands are around his shoulders, so hot they could be fire, and someone is dragging him out of the basement, into the impossibly warm kitchen. He’s still shaking, but he can breathe now. His fingers dig into the linoleum and someone is rubbing circles into his back. A voice is saying, “are you okay?”

Alex sits up and Brian is crouched next to him, still rubbing his back. Jay stands right in front of Alex, leaning against the counter for support and paler than he was. He’s in a shirt that’s too big for him, Brian’s maybe, and it makes him look small and frail. 

Alex tries to scramble back, but Brian’s grip is too secure. “No way,” he scolds. “It hurt my back like hell, getting you out. You’re staying put.”

“But I can’t—I don’t want to….”

“We locked away anything you could use as a weapon,” Jay says. His voice is quiet and weak. He’s looking at Alex differently now. Not with the distrust he had when they first came here. It’s pity.

It makes Alex want to scream in rage and cry at the same time. Instead he takes deep breaths. He needs to think clearly. There’s still the knife in his room. Maybe they didn’t find it. 

“What are you going to do with me?”

Jay glances at Brian. “We can’t leave you in the basement. I think….” Jay bites his lip. “Nevermind.”

“We’re trying to keep you safe, Alex,” Brian says. He doesn’t look Alex in the eye. Disgusted with him, maybe.

Alex rubs his eyes in frustration. He wasn’t the one who needed safety.

“We were thinking we’d just… keep an eye on you. Not really a whole lot of other options.” Jay is looking everywhere but at him.

Alex shrugs, his anger making the gesture forced and jerky. “So I’m free to go? Run around however I like?”

“Stay in the house,” Jay says in a voice just above a whisper. He’s fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

Alex scoffs. “Sure. Will do. I’m going to bed.”

He stands, his muscles responding too slow. He’s still shivering, even in the warmth. He heads for the stairs. Jay tenses when he passes. Alex can’t even find the energy to care. 

His room smells like home. It’s the only place in the house that actually does. Another little detail he can’t wrap his mind around.

For the first time, it’s actually soothing to be in there. Less of a prison, more of a sanctuary.

He cleans his room for once. He folds his clean clothes and puts them away so he can actually close the drawers. The dirty clothes go in the hamper. He stacks some books on the shelf and finds an old Walkman under his bed with a CD inside. It’s so delightfully 90s that Alex actually smiles. He leaves it on his nightstand. 

He can’t write a suicide note. The only person he would write to is Amy and it would just be the words _I’m sorry_ and _I love you_. This is the next best thing he can manage, a gesture to his mother, always scolding him to clean his room but never finding the heart to ground him when it remained a mess. 

His hid his knife under a loose bit of carpet in the back of his closet. He’s not sure why he ever bothered hiding it. Maybe he planned to use it against an assailant, maybe even his father. Maybe he was afraid his mother would take it from him, or worse that his father would. Maybe he just liked having that bit of insurance, a bit of power. 

When he pulls back the carpet, the knife is gone.

The anger Alex feels next isn’t like anything Alex has felt before. He doesn’t remember crossing the hall and barging into Brian’s room, but he definitely feels his fist connect with Brian’s face. Brian hits the floor with a wince. He doesn’t have the sense of balance he used to.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Alex screams. “You can’t just….” _Go into my room and take the knife that I was hiding from you even after I tried to kill our friend._

Alex clenches his jaw, pulls at his hair, starts to pace. Brian uses the couch to pull himself up. He grabs Alex and pulls him close, wraps strong arms around him. “I told you,” he says. “We’ll keep you safe.”

Alex rests his forehead against Brian’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t be alive. It would be easier.”

Alex feels Brian move, like he’s nodding. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Please just let me go,” he whispers.

Brian doesn’t answer. Instead, he guides Alex to the couch. He keeps a hand on his shoulder. Maybe it’s meant to be reassuring, but it feels more like a restraint. “I used to be angry with you,” he says. “But not anymore. I forgive you.”

“All in a couple of hours, huh?”

Brian removes his hand. “It took longer than you think.”

Alex rolls his eyes. He and Jay, they keep talking over his head.

“I’m going to get you something to eat,” Brian says. “It’s almost nightfall and you’ve barely eaten since yesterday morning.” He hesitates for a long time. “Things will get better, Alex. I promise.”

Then he’s gone, the stairs creaking under him. And there was no way to give Amy and the others justice. Not yet. Maybe if he waited, regained their trust, he could kill himself then. It might hurt them more, but it needed to be done. He hit Brian. Yelled at him. He was right all along, a foregone conclusion. He is so like his father.

He wishes he had died that night, when his father locked him in the basement. He wishes his father had shoved him a bit harder at the top of the stairs, that he hadn’t managed to catch the railing. He could have broken his neck and died right then. His father’s life would have been ruined, his mother devastated, but how many others would still be alive? Amy would still have a future. She wanted to be a copyright lawyer. She liked to bake cookies, but she always burned them a little bit around the edges. She wanted to be a mother, and Alex hadn’t known how to tell her how afraid he was to have children, but that he’d try if it made her happy. Her life was worth more than his ever could be. She was important.

There’s a knock at the door. “I brought you food.”

It’s Jay’s voice and Alex turns to see him. He’s got a plate in his hands and he’s shifting from foot to foot like he’s about to ask a girl to dance. 

“I’m not hungry,” Alex says. He turns back to stare at his hands. 

“Brian said to make you.”

Alex suppresses a sigh. Go along with it. Earn their trust. He nods.

Jay offers the plate to Alex. He stands a bit too far away and every step he takes is ginger. Whether it’s because of his injury, his fear of Alex, or both, he’s not sure.

Alex leans forward and takes the plate. It’s a ham sandwich with chips and a little glass of milk balanced on it. He feels like a fucking grade schooler. 

Jay grabs one of Brian’s chairs and sits. Alex must have made a face because Jay says, “He told me to make sure you eat all of it.”

So Alex does. Resentfully. Jay fidgets the whole time, flipping through a random paperback on Brian’s desk. 

“Done.” Alex places the dishes on the floor and lies down, facing the back of the couch. Jay doesn’t move. 

“I’m… not mad at you,” he says. 

“That’s great.”

The chair scuffs against the floor as Jay stands. For a moment, Alex thinks he’s leaving and he’s relieved. Instead, Jay comes closer. Alex tenses. 

He can hear Jay fidgeting, playing with Brian’s pens like he can’t stand not having something in his hands. He can almost taste his nervousness and suddenly Alex is angry again, so angry it hurts his chest. 

“You knew, didn’t you? That I killed Amy. And the others.”

There’s a long silence. “I thought you might have.”

He sounds so defeated. The anger vanishes. He keeps staring at the back of the couch. “Then why didn’t you run when you saw me?”

“You were different. You’re not… you’re not him… yet.” He sounds so pathetic that Alex actually wants to laugh. What a goddamn idealist. 

“I already tried to kill you. You and Brian, you’re both fucking deluded.” He twists around and sits up. “Who were they?” The words come out harsher than he means, like it’s Jay he’s accusing. “The other ones. I can remember… a blond guy, a girl with dark hair. Another man, too. His face is….” Alex swallows. “And someone else but I can’t remember.”

Jay sits on the edge of the couch and Alex decides right then that he’s never met anyone so stupid. Just a few hours ago he was bleeding out in the kitchen. Now he’s playing best friends with his attacker. 

“The first two were Seth and Sarah. They worked on the movie with us. Then just a… a random guy. The last on was….” His voice cracks. “That must have been Jessica.”

Alex feels cold and sick. He digs his nails into the cushions. “Amy’s roommate.”

“I dragged her into it. It’s my fault.”

Alex shakes his head. He rubs his face, shoves his fingers in his hair. 

Jay takes one of his hands and tugs it away. They’re sitting closer than he realized and now they’re touching and Alex has moronic urge to kiss him again. 

He doesn’t love Jay. It’s not some sickly sweet, tragic love story. Jay’s just convenient. He’s cute, in a scrawny way, and he’s the kind of nice that Alex used to be afraid of taking advantage of. If things were different, Alex would screw Jay and they’d forget all about it.

If he kisses Jay now, he’ll drag him down with him. A murderer and his would-be victim. There’s probably a Lifetime movie about that one.

Alex throws off Jay’s hand. “Get the hell away from me.”

For a second, Alex can see the hurt on Jay’s face. Then he’s collecting the dishes and out the door.

Alex lies down again. He had to. There’s something in his head and he can’t be around other people. Maybe what Brian said the day before had merit to it. Maybe Tim is lost in the woods. If he could sneak out, maybe he could find him, help him get to the house, be useful for once. Then he could just disappear.

Sleep comes faster and easier than he expected, still on Brian’s couch and waiting for night to come. He didn’t mean to sleep. 

He wakes when Jay is shaking him, eyes big. “Did you hear that?” he asks when Alex slurs _what?_

He blinks slowly, staring. The memory comes to him, dim and fuzzy from sleep, but yes, he remembers. The front door closed. 

Alex is awake and on his feet. Jay takes a quick step back. “Where’s Brian?”

“I think that was him,” Jay says. “It’s night. Why would he….”

“He’s looking for Tim,” Alex says. There’s no scratching tonight. “He suggested looking at night earlier and—shit.”

He pushes past Jay and grabs the jacket in his room, hanging on his door. He shrugs it on. “I’m looking for him.”

“Me too,” Jay says and that’s when Alex realizes he’s holding his own jacket. “If Tim’s out there, I need to be looking for him.”

Alex wants to protest, but only for a moment. There’s no way he can talk Jay out of this now—he’s in no position too, besides. Jay’s the one that’s been doing this longer, the one that has the right to make these decisions.

Alex nods. “Let’s go.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for surreality, gore, blood, and references to murder.

They take the flashlights, but they do little against the darkness. The night is bitterly cold. “Stay close,” Jay says. He’s pale in the dark.

The jackets aren’t enough against the cold—a curse of living in the South. Alex is shivering and Jay has his jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering.

It seems pointless. They might have left immediately after Brian, but they still have no clue where he went. Wind rattles the tree branches and it makes Alex’s skin crawl.

“How are we even going to—” Alex stops moving his flashlight. There’s frost on the leaves. And a clear footprint. Alex sighs; it’s the feeling of being lead on by a prankster, but having no alternative but to take the bait. “This way,” he says. 

They follow the trail in silence. The frost thickens as they go, becoming a fine layer of snow. It melts on Alex’s shoes, sinking through the canvas.

“I didn’t mention it before,” Jay says, “but that day you were sick, I heard someone in the woods.”

Jay’s about to say more when their flashlights go out.

“Shit,” Alex says. He shakes his flashlight, willing it to flicker back on. Without it, he’s blind. The dark grows colder and Alex shivers so hard that he nearly drops the light. Then, just like that, it comes back. 

Jay is gone.

Alex whips his light around, but he finds only empty air. Not even the trees are there anymore—he’s gone from forest to open road. There’s a streetlight in the distance, but there are no people, no cars, no buildings. Not even mile markers. Alex peers past the edge of the road, but he sees only darkness and it makes him nauseous.

He follows the road. He knows he’s doing something foolish, just doing what the… forest… wants. He doesn’t see what choice he has, though. He has no way to get to Jay and the thought of stepping off the road fills him with dread. He keeps the beam of light ahead of him and walks for the streetlight. 

His light falls over something lumpy and damp. For a moment he thinks it’s an animal, hit by a car—maybe he got out somehow, maybe this is a real highway and his paranoia just got the better of him. 

But no. That’s not fur, it’s clothing. It’s a person.

“Hey!” Alex calls. His voice cracks and he breaks into a sprint. It’s not Brian or Jay—he can see that as he comes closer and relief floods him. The man is too still and thought of either of them gone—

There’s something familiar, though, and it’s making Alex’s throat close up. He raises his light to the man’s face. 

It’s caved in, red with fresh gore and blood. He did this. This is the man he killed. 

Alex gags and stumbles away, forcing his eyes to the streetlight ahead. He has to find Jay and Brian. Nothing else matters but making sure they’re safe and alive. There’s nothing he can do for this man, not anymore. 

The streetlight is bright, eyes stinging. It dizzies Alex and he covers his eyes for a moment, letting his vision adjust slowly.

When he blinks his eyes open again, he sees the little shack just beyond the light. It’s nondescript beyond peeling white paint. A single, crumbling door stands in its center and Alex reaches for the handle. 

Déja vu strikes him as he turns the knob. He’s been here before. He just can’t remember when. 

He opens the door and he’s in the forest again. Snow is on the ground. There’s a clear set of footprints, and Alex refuses to waste more time. He takes off at a jog, mindful of the roots of the trees. 

Through the branches, he can make out a figure, familiar and just a bit hunched.

“Brian!”

_Don’t let it be another trick. Don’t let everything change again._

Brian looks up and Alex nearly sobs in relief. It’s him. Not some… _thing_ meant to toy with him.

Brian is wide-eyed when Alex approaches him. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” Alex snaps. “The fuck is wrong with you, going off like that? You said we’d need a plan if we went looking for Tim at night.”

Brian stares and Alex begins to wonder what he said wrong. Brian just shakes his head. “Tim’s not here, Alex. He never was, he’s safe. Look—just go back home, okay?”

There’s something in his face. It isn’t just the words that concern him. He looks thinner, paler, sickly even. And older. Like Jay.

“I’m not leaving you.” His voice trembles.

Brian shakes his head. He wipes at his forehead with a shaking hand. He leans heavily on his cane and gasps like he’s out of breath. 

“I’m not asking. Leave. Get back to Jay. You two will be safe. I promise.”

“Stop being so damn cryptic, Thomas.” Alex tries to say it like they’re just back in the dorm and joking but his throat is tight. He’s back to pleading in the next breath. “Let’s just go. Let’s get home and then you can explain what you’re talking about.”

Brian hisses in frustration, so like the way he used to when they would goof around—Alex cheating at games, or making bad puns. But this isn’t like that. Brian’s looking at him differently. 

“The forest wants blood. That’s why it’s doing this to you. Breaking you. You weren’t wrong. It’s hungry. Once it’s fed, the forest will thrive again. That’s why it has to be me. Then you and Jay can be safe. It would be like heaven here.”

Even as Brian says the words, Alex feels that pull again. Into the forest. Into the ground. His soul could become flowers, food for the animals. A little bit of decay can go a long way.

Alex licks his lips. “If it wants me, then what are you doing out here?”

“It doesn’t want _you_. It wants anyone. You were just an easy mark. I’ll work just as well.”

“No,” Alex says. “No, no, no one else is dying because of me.” He grabs Brian’s wrist. “Let’s just go. Please.”

Brian grabs Alex’s wrist back, fingers pressing against his pulse. “Alex, if I don’t do this, you’ll just get worse. You’ll break again. You’ll attack me or Jay or you’ll kill yourself and I can’t let you.”

Alex wipes at his eyes with his free hand. “Why not? I don’t want to live. Why make me? If this can all be solved by one death—”

Brian lunges forward, but it’s only to grab Alex’s shoulders. “I remember. Okay? I lied. I remember everything—or I did.” Brian shakes his head. “It’s fading but—I was going to let that happen to you. I hated you so much. I tried to kill you over and over, before. And now that you couldn’t remember anything? I wanted to do it myself. All I had to do was smile and you didn’t suspect anything.” He grins wide, like he’s demonstrating, but it’s bitter. “I didn’t go into that kitchen to save you. I was going to slit your throat and tell Jay you attacked me. But I couldn’t. Because you’re _you_ again. Before you broke.”

Alex stares. He only understands half of what Brian said. He’s not making sense. Maybe he’s confused, or the forest is playing tricks on him. He shakes his head, as much to clear it as to deny Brian’s words. “We… need to find Jay. I lost him and….”

Brian releases Alex. “I thought he was back at the house.” Alex doesn’t even have time to reply, Brian has already begun swearing. “It can’t have him.” He straightens as much as he can, steadying himself on his cane. “Let’s find him.”

He starts forward and Alex shakes his head. “How are we going to find him?”

“Just come on.”

Brian leads the way. He doesn’t have a flashlight and doesn’t seem to rely on the thin beam of light that bounces around as Alex hurries to keep pace. Even with his uneven gait, Brian seems like he belongs here.

Brian is completely silent. Alex’s attempts of “are you okay?” and “where are we going?” go ignored.

The forest begins to thin over time and though Alex still can’t see the sky, morning must be coming: light slips in through the leaves and eventually Alex clicks off his flashlight. 

“It’s just ahead,” Brian says, and they pass through the last stretch of trees and into a field. 

The sky is a sickly yellow. Wild flowers dot the field, but their colors are dull and their leaves droop. Alex touches one and the brittle petals crumble in his hand, as if the entire area is desperate for rainfall.

It’s never rained since they woke up. The forest is lush, but lifeless. This field is beautiful, but dehydrated. _The forest is hungry,_ Brian said, and Alex is beginning to grasp just how hungry it must be. 

In the center of the field is a house. 

“Isn’t that your home?” Alex asks. His throat is tight. Brian had brought him there once for Thanksgiving. It was the first holiday after he had moved out and the first time he had to tell his mother, no, he didn’t think he could make it—he’s busy, something came up, he’s sorry but he’ll try to make it next time. 

He was just going to stay home while his roommates visited their families, but Brian had given him that easy grin of his and told him about the stuffing his mother made from scratch and before long Alex was agreeing to come along. Brian was like that, always finding ways to get people to agree with him. He used to carry around band aids with little cartoon characters on them, all kiddish and bright colors. Tim had clumsy hands—he had a habit of collecting an assortment of small injuries and he never attended to them. Brian could slap a cartoon band aid on every time he saw an untreated cut. He kept doing it until Tim finally gave up and started looking after himself better—nice, beige bandages eventually took the place of neon pink and bold blue. Alex used to laugh about it, how silly Tim looked with those bandages and how desperate he was to escape Brian’s unusual form of punishment, until one day he scraped his knee while scouting out filming locations. Brian gave him a SpongeBob band aid. When Alex picked it off in what he thought was a discreet manner, he got My Little Pony instead. After that, he and Tim would sometimes share glances of solidarity and the occasional flesh-toned band aid.

Alex would call Brian a manipulative bastard if it wasn’t for the fact he was so well-intentioned and that the outcome was always beneficial to his friends. At Thanksgiving, Alex had nearly cried into his potatoes from how kind Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were to him. 

Brian doesn’t answer his question. “Stay close,” he says and they begin to cross the field. 

The house is an old farm house, two stories and twice as wide as Alex’s house. There’s a trampoline in the yard and a vegetable garden in the front. There’s a treehouse that no longer looks safe and a tire swing hanging from the same tree. It almost makes Alex feel like they have gotten out, found safety.

The house is too quiet. Even after the Thanksgiving guests had cleared out aside from himself and Brian, the house was noisier than Alex would have expected from a rural home. A barking dog, a TV or radio left on for white noise, Brian’s siblings arguing or playing. It was a big house for a big family. There was always something going on. 

Brian stands at the door for a long moment. His breaths are forcibly even. With a jarring motion, he puts his hand on the door knob and twists. The door gives easily and he steps inside. Alex catches a glimpse of the living room, family photos on the mantle and blue carpet.

Then the door slips out of Brian’s grasp and begins to swing closed. Brian startles, reaching for the knob, but it moves too fast. The door slams shut, separating Alex and Brian.

Brian doesn’t open the door again. Alex pushes it open himself. Inside, it isn’t a home. It’s dark and unlit, but pale yellow light streams in and reveals long hallways. Brian is nowhere to be seen.

There’s nothing else he can do. Alex steps inside and clicks on his flashlight again.

“Brian?” he calls. There’s no response.

Alex starts walking down the hallway. It leads to all sorts of rooms, each in a state of disrepair. One room has a broken door with the words _Photographic Studio and Darkroom_ emblazoned on it, and another is a partially destroyed bathroom. The hallway makes a right turn at the staircase. Alex glances down, but doesn’t see anything.

Alex is only just grasping the railing when he hears a sound behind him, something loud, like a bang. He turns, but there’s nothing.

“Brian?” he says, but it’s a whisper. Investigating strange sounds is how people die in horror movies, a part of his brain reminds him, but his friends are lost, and doesn’t he want to die anyway?

He walks slowly, trying to keep his light steady. Alex glances in each room for signs of something having fallen. It’s the last room in the hall, the one with the kicked-down door. There’s someone inside.

Jay is clutching a camera, features washed out in the light of the viewfinder. His eyes are pale. He’s looking right at Alex.

“I heard someone in the forest yesterday,” he whispers. Alex had nearly forgotten. “They called your name and I tried to find them. But it got dark and they didn’t say anything again.” He looks lost, eyes not quite focused. He holds out the camera, tilting it as if to show Alex the viewfinder. “It was me. It was a recording. I found you and you… you shot me.”

His hands start trembling, shaking hard, the camera nearly tumbling to the ground. Alex moves to catch it and it’s a stupid, stupid reflex because Jay jumps back and he really does drop the camera. There’s a crack.

“Stay away from me!”

Alex freezes. Jay’s breaths come in ragged gasps. He’s looking around like he’s trying to put his memories back together. 

Red is seeping through the shirt Brian lent Jay, right where Alex had stabbed him. Or was it where he shot him? The memories bend. He’s in a dusty hallway holding a knife. In a kitchen with a gun pressed against Jay’s side.

“You shot me,” Jay gasps, like he can’t believe it. He presses a hand to his side and stares at the blood. “You shot me and it…. How am I still alive? What did you _do_ to me?”

Alex takes a step forward. He doesn’t know why—maybe he thinks it’ll be better to stand closer to Jay, make it easier to understand, but Jay flinches and lunges at him. Alex stumbles back and Jay pushes past him, into the hallway.

Alex doesn’t know what to do. Jay doesn’t want to be near him. He’s afraid, he should be. But he needs to find him and get him home. Brian talked about it like it was a safe place. He would know. He seemed to know a lot about this place.

Alex picks up the camera, viewfinder dark and cracked, and steps back into the hallway. He’s relieved to find it the same as he left it. Jay’s nowhere to be seen, so Alex follows the hall. He doesn’t try to step quietly: he’d rather not sneak up on Jay.

Alex takes the stairs slowly, ears straining for any sound that could give away Jay’s location. He’s done this before.

There’s a cough, dry and breathy and Alex follows the sound. Jay is leaned against a wall, one hand grasping a nearby table. A coughing fit has him.

“Jay?” Alex says as the cough subsides. “I’m not going to hurt you. We just—”

Jay laughs. He laughs so hard he starts coughing again. He’s trembling against the wall. His face is hidden in his hands. “You _already_ hurt me,” he rasps.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says and he means it, he means it _so much_ that his body aches.

Jay lowers his hands. He’s staring at the table long and hard and that’s when Alex realizes there’s something on it. Jay takes it in both hands like it’s a treasure. Alex holds his breath and waits.

Jay turns and points the gun at Alex.

He wants to die. He wants to make things right. This is a good thing.

But Jay is crying openly now, arms shaking so badly that he can’t hold the gun straight and a sob wracks his body. He slides down the wall, dropping the gun.

“I’m sorry,” Jay chokes out. “I’m sorry.”

Alex sits, lightheaded and weak-kneed. He can’t decide. Is he relieved that he’s still alive or disappointed? The gun is still lying there. He can reach for it, if he wants.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks, but his voice is flat.

Jay is silent, staring off at some point to his right. Alex waits.

“I can’t remember who I am,” he whispers.

“You’re Jay,” Alex says but he knows that’s not what he’s looking for. He’s not even sure who Jay is anymore—the one he remembers, sweet and gullible, or the one sitting across from him, hardened and desperate.

It’s the same way for him. Just the other day he was working on his script. Now he’s trying to wash blood off his hands.

And what about Brian? He’s changed, too. Sometimes, when his face is dark, Alex thinks he can see the real him.

“We have to find Brian,” Alex says because he’s still his friend, even through all this.

Jay looks up and his eyes are dull. Alex has never seen someone look so tired. “Is he here?”

“I think so. I found him and we were trying to find you. We got split up again.”

Jay nods and he climbs to his feet, slowly, like he’s afraid the world will tilt under his feet.

“We should stay close,” Alex says as he stands, and he watches for any sign that Jay doesn’t want Alex anywhere near him, but Jay just nods.

“Can I have my camera?” he says, his voice tiny. Alex holds it out to him and Jay takes it like it’s a delicate, living thing even though it’ll probably never work again. He doesn’t even glance at the gun.

“What about…?” Alex gestures at the bloodstain on Jay’s shirt. Jay touches it again, then frowns and lifts his shirt. There’s no wound, just an ugly scar. “Oh,” Alex says. Jay just sighs and smooths the shirt back into place. The blood on it is still wet and it smears.

Alex leads the way, through the hallway and back down the stairs. When they reach the landing, things have changed again. It’s back to being Brian’s home, the threshold where he last saw Brian.

Alex glances over his shoulder to make sure Jay’s still with him. He’s frowning at the change in scenery, but his eyes are clear again. It’s a new problem for him to solve—as long as Jay’s mind is occupied, Alex doesn’t have to worry.

Alex walks further into the house. There’s a kitchen and dining room to the left, but both look empty. On the right there’s a living room and a staircase and doors that lead to a couple of bedrooms. One is ajar and even though there are no lights on inside, Alex knows that’s where Brian is. It is, after all, his room.

Inside, the room is lit by dull sunlight, but the shadows remain dark and heavy. Brian is sat on the floor at his bookcase, back turned to them. The room is the same as Alex remembers: modest but cozy. He spent the night on Brian’s floor during Thanksgiving, though it was far from unpleasant there; he slept on an inflatable mattress Mr. Thomas brought out of storage for him and he and Brian stayed up late playing checkers and making up new rules to play by. They had talked about something, but Alex can’t remember what.

“I found Jay,” Alex says. Brian stays motionless and Alex shuffles forward. “Are you okay?”

Brian’s looking at something cradled in his lap and Alex takes another step forward, breath catching. 

It’s a photo album. There are pictures of barbecues and school plays and vacations and Brian’s family is in most of them: two brothers and his sister, who Alex remembers is the oldest and a bit standoffish in comparison to her family but she had been the one to find Alex a spare toothbrush when he forgot his.

Their faces have been burned out in every photo. Brian is clutching the album so hard his knuckles have whitened.

“I can’t remember their faces,” Brian says, voice gravelly. “I can’t even remember mine.”

Alex doesn’t know what to do. He’s not like Brian, not any good at comforting people. And Brian’s supposed to be fine—he’s always fine, always the one with an it’s not your fault and it’s okay to have a bad day.

So Alex just sits next to him and looks at the pictures with him—page after page of happy memories marred by cruel fire.

“We didn’t make it, did we?”

It’s Jay who says the words, still standing behind Alex and clutching his camera. Brian doesn’t say anything. 

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Jay perches on the edge of Brian’s bed. He looks around the room and nods to himself. “I mean, this _has_ to be Hell.”

Alex has never given the afterlife much thought. He figured he’d worry about it when he got there, but he has to agree: if Hell were a place, it would be _this_ place.

It’s a blessing, then. He’s dead. Justice has been seen to. His crimes haven’t gone unpunished.

The memory of sliding a knife between Amy’s ribs doesn’t weigh any less.

“Is Tim here too?” Jay’s voice cracks as he says it and Alex can see tears in his eyes. Brian shakes his head. Jay wipes at his face. He laughs and it’s a sick sound. “I did something bad,” he says. “Really bad.”

“I can fix it,” Brian tells Jay, running his fingers over the ruined photos. “I can make this place safe for Tim and you. The both of you.”

Alex puts a hand on his arm. “Come on. Let’s get back to the house. It’s safer there, right?”

Brian nods. He closes the photo album and places it back on the shelf, right where it belongs. He stands and gestures for Alex and Jay to follow. “I can get us home.”

The journey is a long one. They leave the field behind, Brian’s home vanishing as they enter the forest. After a while they see one of the trees Alex marked and he goes to follow it, but Brian pulls him back. “You’ll just get lost,” he says.

Alex isn’t sure how Brian finds his way back to their home, but he does, just as night is falling again. It’s the same as they left it, like the only place in the whole damn forest that makes any kind of sense. He actually sighs a breath of relief when he steps inside.

“Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” he tells Brian. “All of it.”

Brian nods and Jay is looking around the house like he’s never really noticed it before, still holding that goddamn camera and neither of them deserve this. Brian, who always just wanted to help people and let them know that someone cares and Jay, who always hesitates just a little when he meets someone new but always gives them a sweet, crooked grin even when he can’t make eye contact. They’re good people, no matter the mistakes they made. He’s never done anything for anyone.

They go upstairs and Brian passes out immediately on his couch, foot dangling off the edge like a child. He leaves the door wide open and Alex goes to close it, but he stops. No matter what they say tomorrow, Brian’s already made up his mind. They’re going to lose him. The thought is more than Alex can bear.

“Hey.” Alex looks up and Jay is standing at his door, shifting from foot to foot. He holds up the camera. “Thanks for giving this back to me.” He glances up at Alex, actually makes eye contact, then looks down again. “Thanks,” he says again, and he disappears inside his room.

Alex closes Brian’s door and goes to his own room. Just a little while ago, he planned to kill himself in this room. He still could. Even if Brian and Jay have locked away all the knives, there are other ways he could do it. He could give his life to the forest and save Brian and Jay from more misery, make this place a utopia, if one that came at the cost of blood.

He can’t do that, though. Not after seeing Brian’s face in that old, empty farmhouse. He needs Alex to live even more than Alex needs to die.

Dying would only solve his own problems and the thought of hurting Brian is enough to stay his hand.

He wonders if Jay would care if he died. The gun pointed in his face says no, but there was that look just a moment ago and it complicates things.

So he won’t do it. But he has to keep Brian safe.

It has to be a compromise. He can’t die, but he has to do something. If the forest wants a life, maybe it’ll settle for something simpler.

It’s been thirty minutes since the others went to bed and if they weren’t asleep before, they were now. When was the last time Alex slept? It feels like it’s been years.

Alex has been sneaking out of his parents’ house since he was a kid. He knows how to do it without so much as a sound.

Outside, the air is warm and inviting. The forest opens up to him, like the maw of a beast, beckoning him closer.

He’s an idiot. A dumb kid who could never figure out when to stop and maybe if he had, he’d still be alive. Jay and Brian and Amy too.

He walks into the dark of the forest and wonders if it really can reach into his mind and take what it wants. He wonders if it knows what he’s thinking.

A trade. Not all of him, but part. Enough to give the forest life, but not enough take him away from his friends. Half a soul for half a life. It’s better than nothing.

The forest sighs and the forest hums and the tree branches reach down to wrap him in an embrace.

A good trade.

* * *

Alex doesn’t return until sunrise. He climbs the steps with heavy feet, forgetting to skip the stair that creaks. By the time Alex reaches the landing, Brian is poking his head out of the bathroom, hair damp. He frowns.

“I didn’t know you were already up.”

Alex heads for his room and crawls under the covers.

“Alex?”

Outside, birds are singing.


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for blood, implied PTSD, depression, guilt/victim blaming, and mourning. I’m sorry I took so long to post this last bit, but I hope that you all enjoyed the story regardless.

Blood fills Alex’s airways. He presses a hand to the wound, but even in all the chaos in his head, he knows it’s too late. He can’t breathe. He’s going to die.

He forces out words, blood spraying from his lips, but all he can think of is the buzzing in his skin. It’s coming. The dread sits in his stomach, familiar, and he wonders if there ever was a point in his life that he didn’t feel it. Maybe others got the same feeling when they thought about him.

Someone grabs Alex and he almost screams.

“Hey, hey it’s just me.” It’s dark. What little light there is comes from moonlight, slipping in through the blinds. He recognizes the shape of Brian’s face and tries to focus. He was dreaming.

Alex forces air into his lungs and runs shaking fingers over his throat. It’s intact. Not even a scar to show for the mess Tim made of him. The sensation of drowning in his own blood clings to him.

“Are you okay? Do you want me to sit with you?”

They’re in Brian’s room, on his couch. Alex can’t sleep in his own room anymore. He gets lost in the memories and can’t think. He gets jumpy. Here, there’s a bit of distance. It’s not as bad.

There’s a creak outside the door and Alex flinches. It’s just Jay, probably woken by whatever sounds Alex choked out in his sleep. It’s not anything to be frightened of.

In absence of a reply, Brian sits next to Alex. Jay doesn’t knock. He never does. A moment later, there’s another tiny creak and then the soft click of a door.

“I’m fine,” Alex says. He feels less winded now, the phantom pain receding. A bit of moonlight falls on Brian’s face. His forehead is pinched in concern. If this place had any sort of supermarket, Alex would give him a Mother of the Year mug. “I just need a minute. I’ll be okay.”

He means it, too. Today is a good day. He’s going to shower and get dressed and have something to eat. Maybe he’ll manage a few words to Jay.

“Okay,” Brian says, because he’s always let Alex have his pride. He grabs some things and leaves to shower. It’s 6 a.m. Looks like an early morning for everyone.

* * *

Alex puts bread in the toaster. He does that specifically so Brian won’t do it for him. He’s fine. Nightmares happen. His hands are trembling ever so slightly, a small part of him still wondering _did they fear you like you feared it like you feared your father?_

But he’s fine. He can pour his own coffee. He doesn’t need Brian hovering over him.

Brian’s not hovering. Brian’s at the table, eating his cereal, giving Alex his space. It doesn’t really matter. He knows Brian is watching him out of the corner of his eye, looking for a sign that Alex is less than okay.

The toaster pops. Brian doesn’t look up from his bowl. Alex puts the toast on his plate and joins him at the table.

Jay’s already had breakfast. Alex can tell because the coffee pot was already on and there were new dishes in the sink. Jay doesn’t even drink coffee. Makes him anxious.

Alex doesn’t know where he is now—outside, maybe. They’ve gotten good at avoiding each other. Jay’s especially good at it—he’s been avoiding Alex for years now. The most they’ve talked is when they unlofted Brian’s bed to make it easier on his back—he refused to let Alex sleep on the floor—and even that was limited to a few grumbles.

“I was thinking,” Brian says and Alex nearly groans. “If it would help, we could try rearranging things in here. Make it seem less like. You know. Your old home.”

Alex almost calls him an idiot on reflex but he stops. He’s right. He can’t look at a single corner of this house without remembering something. The blue lace curtain above the kitchen sink was something his mother took from her parents’ home, a little keepsake. The back porch has fishing tackle tucked into a corner—his father would take him fishing sometimes, to bond, and it was just as likely to end with fresh bruises as it was with the beaming smile of a proud father.

He’s taken too long to answer. Brian is looking even more concerned than usual, and he’s looked that way constantly ever since Alex—

The thought knocks the breath out of him. For a moment, Alex thinks he can hear the trees whispering to each other.

“No,” Alex says and fiddles with the crust of his toast. His mother used to tease him about never eating the crust to anything. “Maybe it would make things easier, but I don’t want to forget.”

And fuck, now his eyes are burning and his throat is closed up. How can he explain that even for all the bad memories, there are good ones, too? That for even as much as Alex could hate and fear his father, the knowledge that he’ll never know what happened to his son is more than Alex can bear.

If the living leave shrines to the dead, it makes sense to him for the dead to leave shrines to the living. He just wishes Jay and Brian could do the same.

Alex caught Jay, once, looking at that broken camera. He had gathered up his will and decided to talk to Jay about _anything_ , but he couldn’t after seeing that. He wonders who Jay was thinking of—Tim, maybe, or Jessica, or even his own parents. Maybe he was mourning himself. Alex is almost envious that Jay can do that.

Brian, though, he’ll never know what goes on in his head. He doesn’t resent anything he did, but Alex can’t be sure of anything about him anymore. Now he just trusts him because it’s less exhausting than questioning him all the time.

Brian gathers up the dishes. Alex holds back a sigh. As exhausting as questioning him would be, his insistence on being kind has to be twice as tiring.

“He forgives you, you know.”

Alex knows. He doesn’t need a reminder—he’s lost sleep over Jay’s forgiveness. Brian’s too. It’s not a concept he can quite grasp and being reminded of it makes him grind his teeth.

“Has he forgiven _you_?”

Brian doesn’t flinch, but Alex knows he hurt him from the way his shoulders stiffen. Alex looks down at his ragged nails. So he’s an asshole. Maybe they’ll make some other shocking discoveries today, like water is wet and the sky is blue.

Alex leaves the kitchen table, chair left askew in a way that would have his mother going, “Push in your chair _correctly_ , young man.”

There’s a TV in the living room. For lack of anything better to do, Alex could put in a movie and watch it. That’s the big secret of the afterlife: you run out of things to do pretty fast.

The last time someone tried to use the TV, it had emitted a piercing shriek of static that left the household jumping at tiny sounds for the rest of the day.

Technology isn’t the way to go. He wouldn’t mind going back to bed, but he can already see Brian’s concerned mother-hen expression. It’s enough to send him out through the front door and to the outdoors.

The sun is shining bright and warm; Alex squints against it. When was the last time he was out?

There are little flowers popping up in the lawn—little polka dots of white and yellow. They make him think of the wildflowers around the phantom of Brian’s house. He wonders if it still exists out there, empty and waiting for Brian to come home and look at those burned pictures again. It seems a waste.

There’s a bird singing in a tree at the edge of the forest.

“Shut up,” Alex grumbles. “I will hunt you down if you don’t.”

The bird, apparently unaware of Alex’s credentials, continues to chirp happily. Alex sighs and lets his threat hang empty. He sits on the step.

He can’t really remember if he’s always been irritable like this. He thinks he used to be happy, when he started filming _Marble Hornets_ , but before… everything else.

Once, he stole Jay’s hat and put it on for just a moment before Jay snatched it back with a grin. It made his stomach twist. If he hadn’t been completely smitten with Amy at the time, he might have thought more about that, about why he asked Jay to help him with just about every stage of the production.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. If anything, it might have made things worse.

The bird stops singing and flaps off. Alex nearly sighs in relief.

“So, if these animals are alive because of you, does that make you their mother?”

Jay is shuffling his feet, half-hidden by the porch railing. He’s not quite making eye contact with Alex, and Alex is grateful.

“That’s weird,” Alex says, and his voice comes out tight. “I’d rather not think about it.”

“You have a million children.” Jay’s grinning at his shoes.

“There can’t be a million animals in this forest.”

“There are mosquitoes. I saw them.”

Alex sighs. “Great. It figures that my kids would be the most annoying thing in existence.”

Jay laughs and their eyes meet for a second. Alex feels the corners of his mouth lift in a grin, but then he recognizes the fluttering feeling in his stomach and he’s disgusted with himself.

He studies a patch of dandelions next to the steps. Jay edges closer.

“Brian says Jessica might end up here too. Or others.”

Alex knows. Brian told him as much. Only people who’ve rotted like they have come here. Others, like Amy, go… wherever everyone else goes.

He’s still not sure he was wrong. If he had killed Jessica and Tim, he could have stopped it from spreading. Now more people will come. Sooner or later, the forest will become hungry again and—

Alex rubs his face. He can’t think about it. It’s not anything he can help anymore and even if he was right….

He tries not to think about Amy too much. He thinks he really will break if he lets himself linger on her memory.

He might have been wrong. Maybe it’ll just be Tim and no one else. He hopes so.

“Jessica is too good of a person to wind up here,” he says, because he has to believe it.

Jay snorts. “We were _all_ good people, once.”

Jay has moved closer to Alex, leaning against the railing like he’s trying to be casual, but his spine is too stiff. He looks pretty in the sunlight and Alex thinks that Jay is _still_ a good person, even after all of this. He was the one to put the gun down.

He used to wonder what kind of person he would be, if push came to shove. Everyone must wonder that at some point, if they’d do the right thing. Now he knows.

It’s more than just lost lives, though those are no small burden. It’s the cruel, unforgivable things he said to Tim. It’s that when he shot Jay, all he could feel was a painful gasp of relief. It’s that he spent his last breaths pleading for Tim to kill himself. And it’s that he’s not sure he was wrong.

People wonder what they would do if they ever encountered a monster, but he was the monster.

He wonders if goodness can be learned, like any skill. Could it be mastered, with enough time and practice and the right amount of dedication? Or maybe it’s something that a person is born with. Maybe he was born this way, destined to end up in a place like this. If he was, then maybe his father….

He’d like to try. He owes Jay that much. One tiny sacrifice wasn’t enough to wipe away what he did.

“Do you want to make graves for the others?” Alex is still barefoot. For some reason, all he can think of is how long it’s been since he’s felt grass under his feet.

Jay is looking down at him, but Alex doesn’t want to see his face. He’d like to find yellow and pink flowers to put on Amy’s grave because he doesn’t think he could find lilies but she’d probably want that as her second choice. They could find riverstones for Sarah because there was one shoot where she’d skip them across the water between takes. She grinned when she got one to the other side. For Seth, he’d plant a tree because he was always reading some environmentalist blog or another. He doesn’t know what he’d do for the man from the tunnel. He doesn’t even know his name.

“I think they’d like that,” Jay says and his voice breaks. He ducks his head when Alex looks up. Alex pretends not to see him wipe at his face.

A knot of tension undoes itself in Alex’s gut. He said the right thing.

It’s not enough, but it’s a start. He can do more.

Today is a good day.


End file.
